


In the Hall of Mirrors

by SansSoucis



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Angst, Brothers, Dark, Developing Relationship, Guilt, Historical, Hurt/Comfort, Immortality, Injury Recovery, Jealousy, M/M, Minor Violence, Multi, Post-World War I, Romance, Siblings, Smoking, War, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22974019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SansSoucis/pseuds/SansSoucis
Summary: Gilbert had tried to raise Ludwig without mercy and with an iron hand, just so the world would not have to do it for him.Yet, as he wanders the halls of Versailles in the tumultuous aftermath of the Great War and observes a scene between two supposed enemies, his choices might come to haunt him.
Relationships: England/France (Hetalia), Germany/Prussia (Hetalia), Prussia (Hetalia)/Other(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 76





	In the Hall of Mirrors

**Author's Note:**

> "The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies."
> 
> Article 231, or the 'War Guilt Clause' of the Versailles Treaty.

**The 28th of June, 1919.**

Prussia had never been particularly fond of the Hall of Mirrors, and even more so now; for having his mangled reflection harrowingly flung back at him with every step he took for seventy meters or so was nothing short of torture. 

Crazy to think the Kaiserreich had been born here only fifty years ago. And now they were here to sign its demise. 

He'd tried, really tried disciplining the boy with an iron hand and without mercy so the world would not have to do it for him, but losing one's first war was something a nation could never be fully prepared for. And Lieber Gott, what a defeat this was, the corners of Ludwig's mouth quivering more violently with every other paragraph the American read aloud. 

The boy was young, Prussia muses, too young. But they had all fell down hard in the beginning of their times, hadn't they? He himself had died a thousand deaths fighting for his little spot on Earth long before Otto von Bismarck was as much as an inkling of existence within his mother's womb, long before Ludwig ever came to be. Hell, England and France had been going to war with one another since they were pre-pubescents at best. Tough lessons had to be learned if Deutschland wanted to keep on playing with the empires, Prussia supposed, and his own stern upbringing could only do so much. 

Still, he could only hope the American hadn't completely blasted his brother's existence off the table once he'd finished reading through the Dictate. 

Salvation arrives in the shape of England sharply calling for a break; ink all over his copies of the treaty and down the front of his jacket and carrying more colour in his face than Prussia had ever suspected his pale sickish body could still possess. 

He didn't need to hear that a second time, relieved to get away from Ludwig's red rimmed eyes for a bit, away from the treaty laid open to them on the table; copies provided as if they had the opportunity to make amendments.

* * *

After having fled into the gardens for the contemporary bliss of a cigarette (or three) Prussia had decided to turn a few more spare corners on the way back. After all, he couldn't risk running into the United States returning from wherever he had fucked off to to smoke, for the thought of having to hear him rattle on endlessly about his League of Nations already causes exhaustion to pulse up his temples. This had brought him to the current state he was in, stomping angrily about the place, completely having lost sight of any way back to the Hall and it's mirrored misery. 

_Verfluchtes Versailles_ , he curses inwardly as he slams open yet another door into another corridor. He'd never understood why Der Alte Fritz had so admired the marbled home of the French kings, much less understood his obsessive fascination with the land they had ruled; while Versailles might've looked marvelous in all its outside grandeur back in Fritz's days, inside its inhabitants had been relieving themselves over the floors. Gilbert personally thought it was much the same with Francis himself. 

_And speaking of the devil.._ Just as he is about to violently fling open yet another door leading to probably nothing at all, a glimpse of an awfully familiar golden-locked head makes Prussia freeze dead in his tracks

 _Frankreich_ , he realises as every single hair on his body raises in vigilance, ducking away before the other decides the frantic creaking of floorboards is anything other than the palace's old age. 

From what he can see through the crack in the door, France sits on his own, smoking in front of two tall glass doors that are open and overlooking the immense, unnervingly square gardens. The rooms he's in appears to be a guest room of some sort, with a large bed facing the window and multiple other doors on the opposite wall. 

Prussia hovers his hand over the doorknob. He certainly can't just _barge_ in, though his old friend is currently in no state to take him on. He doesn't know what exactly he would do with the man at his mercy in a room with lockable doors, but England and America would surely have his head for it, and his body had already taken more than enough damage on the Eastern Front. 

Besides, the Great War had bore only a shred of resemblance to the ones before, more destructive and excruciating than any others, and instead of trying to fruitlessly turn its cause in palace backrooms it was likely wiser to cling onto the last shreds of honour he had left in the face of the humiliation that was soon to inevitably fall upon him. 

Better to move on then, he decides, although the sound of footsteps coming from the other side of France's room make him reconsider. A door opens, and God, he'd recognize that infuriatingly haughty pitch of a voice anywhere. 

'So this is where Alfred has wheeled you off to then.' 

France just keep on smoking, barely turns his head at the sound.

'It is indeed. Although I have not seen _cher Amerique_ since he last finished his cigarette.' 

He says matter-of-factly in-between breaths of smoke and air. 'How much do you want to bet he's actually forgotten to take me back?' 

More footsteps, and England stumbles into his line of sight. Smile uncharacteristically soft, black staining the front of his jacket. The spots fade into grey at the edges, betraying frantic, embarrassed scrubbing at them in a desperate attempt to get them out. 

Ruin suits him better, Gilbert thinks evilly. It would suit them all better, certainly better than the gloves and glasses and canes carved out of bamboo that they've all been sporting now, pretending that they are perfectly proper people instead of murderous immortals with bodies broken and battered up underneath their fancy suits from continuously battling one another; not just in this War but in the hundreds before. 

_Christ, how many had they had?_

'America's a bit of an airhead at times.' England says with an apologetic shrug. 'But he means well, he really does.'

France does not respond, though the slight nod of his head betrays fond agreement. England wanders aimlessly about the room for a bit, before he disappears from view, sound of something heavy vibrating over the floors. 

It is a chair, and Prussia can't help but note triumphantly that it apparently takes every single bit of strength England's hollowed-out physique still possesses to drag it next to where France sits. 

_Quite the pair they made_ , Prussia sneers inwardly, _set of corpses across the room._ They hardly looked the part of mighty empires, wearing their victory as badly as they did.

Hell, even Prussia carried himself with more grandeur, and the only things he still possessed were German statehood and a face that scared the children in the streets.

* * *

_'You've still got bandages on.'_

_Gilbert touched his cheek in mock surprise. It was hard to smirk now, with the way his face was all taped and strapped together_

_'It appears I do. How very well-observed, Deutschland.'_

_He resisted the urge the slap away the inquisitive frown that has crumpled onto his brother's face._

_'But it's been months now.'_

_It didn't even hurt. In fact, he felt nothing at all as he tugged at his skin, numb as it were, rolled down ribbons of smeared blacks and browns and yellows to damp knots in his fists._

_'Lieber Gott-' Ludwig's voice cracked violently at the sight of his brother's cleaved visage of torn, glistening flesh, open and oozing._

_'Preussen, how-?' He whispered, pure horror reflected in his icy eyes. 'Why isn't it healing?'_

* * *

'I suppose it is.. _easy._ ' France remarks with hard, decisive tap of his cigarette against his armrest, sending ash sprawling down over the floor. The back of his head is still firmly directed at Gilbert and it looks quite off, the way his dearly cherished curls now grow short and wild and dense to fit underneath a helmet.

' _Easy_ when you are young like he is, always jumping and running about the world. Easy to forget about the ones who can't keep up.'

England has to chuckle at that, slightly out of breath as he takes the wheelchair and manoeuvres France ever so slightly so the two of them can sit in front of the window together. 

'I doubt anyone could ever forget _you_. You usually strike quite the impression.'

Prussia's come to meet England's ugly face across many a battlefield over the decades, contorted and snarling with rage. He's fought, fucked and murdered the man, would consider himself awfully acquainted with his most common states of mind, the expression of general discontent that's usually painted over the chub in his cheeks and his sharp pointy nose, corners of his thin mouth drooping down. 

There's none of that now, none of that on England. An odd quirk-up of one mouth corner instead, hands gliding over the leather-padded handles and onto France's shoulders, remaining. Judging by the small section of Francis' face that Gilbert can see now, he's sort of smiling around his cigarette as well, though he might as well have imagined it, because in the blink of an eye it's all gone and Arthur's grimacing and lowering himself into the chair. 

He watches them sit in silence for a minute or so, before France speaks again, spiteful whisper:

'Can you believe he was born here, at _my_ Versailles? Gilbert's little spawn of hell. _Mon Dieu_ , I should have shattered his buffoonish brains against the crib when I still had the chance.' 

Ludwig had been a beautiful baby, pinkishly round and well-fed with big blue eyes and tufts of blonde hair sprouting on top of his head; the epitome of Germanic beauty. 

Gilbert had been burned at the stake for his appearance; this child would not, not ever. 

The first weeks of Germany's life he had refused to even see him, jealous as he was. Yet after some time, after watching the infant desperately press its tiny red mouth to the gold spun across his chest; too daft to realise the other nation did not have any teats for him to suckle on, Prussia had come to realise that this tiny being depended on him like no one ever had before, that he was the one who needed to shape Germany into the fierce, strong empire he was bound to become.

 _Oh_ , how he had thrived off of it back then; the sensation of being needed. 

_England is quite similar in that regard_ , he thinks as he watches the man carefully flatten out the wrinkles in the blanket thrown over France's bone-thin knees, making sure they are tucked under nice and warm as he speaks to him in a hushed blend of whispers.

'It's a bit late for that, I'm afraid.' 

After he's deemed his work satisfactory, the Briton slumps back down into the chair, opens his palm to catch the cigarette that France wordlessly offers him. Gilbert can't exactly see the look on his face anymore, but he assumes it's a crude little twist of lips as he speaks. 

'He _will_ get what's coming to him, though. We've made sure of that, have we not?' 

They certainly had. _'Sign the treaty, or the war will continue._ ' was more than enough of a clear message. 

England's attempts to strike a match are rather pitiful, his stark-white hands jerking and spasming in awkward ways, dying spiders. 

'Bugger, I-' He hisses loudly as a match snaps to waste between his forcefully trembling fingers and the box. _'Fuck_!' 

The broken remains fly out his hands and across the floor. If Gilbert were bold enough to extend his arm into the room, he'd be able to pick it right off the polished wood. _And they dared to call themselves victors.._

'Let me do it.' France snaps rather violently, snatching the box from his companion's hands and lighting a match with one swift stroke. 

Pink-cheeked England leans towards the flame with a thoroughly ashamed mutter of ' _thanks_ ', and Prussia greedily drinks up the sight of him, hands now full on trembling and in no way able to steady the cigarette. In fact, the Great British Empire can't even seem to take it from his mouth, and France has his nails digging their own graves into the armrests because of it. 

' _Fucking hell_ \- Francis could you please-' England huffs weakly as he struggles on, waving his hands about like a nursling, and it takes only seconds for France to break, yanking the cigarette from the other's mouth with an ugly sob. He smashes it to wither and die against the side of his wheelchair. 

'Look at you Arthur! Look at us! What he did to us!' He cries, fully turning his head towards the England for the first time, allowing Gilbert to witness the pain etched onto every single contour of his face. It is even more evident because of how painfully tight the skin is spun around his cheekbones, the purplish hollows of his eye sockets. 

Feels good, Prussia thinks, seeing France hideous like that, choking on his victory. Makes him feel slightly better about his own reflection, rough scar tissue hardened all over. While the mortar itself had missed him; the shards had not. He'd cried after taking the bandages off for the first time, wishing it had just killed him instead. 

A chair scrapes loudly across the floor; England having half-risen, grim mouth pulled tight in determination 

'He will pay for every single last thing he did to you. And to me, and anybody else for that matter.'' He growls in a fierce promise to France's bowed head and shaking shoulders and Prussia feels his insides boil because it was all so unfair, so horribly unfair, letting a _child_ carry the entire burden of war on his own just so they could all lull themselves into sleep on the pretense of victory, as if they all had not craved the sting of the battlefield just as badly as Ludwig had done. Truly despicable, the lengths arrogant nations would go to salve their wounded pride. 

As France's cries don't still, England moves to lean over fully, trusting heavily on the wheelchair's armrests to support him as he looks France in the face. 

'Forget them, France! That infant oaf and his maimed freak of a brother will be nothing. They will sign the Treaty and they will be nothing!' 

There's more than a little note of pleading desperation to his voice, indicating that this is by far not the first time he's tried to convince France of this, and Prussia gains some satisfaction from the fact that he apparently hasn't succeeded thus far. 

France responds with a noise that is mangled somewhere in-between a sob and a roar. 

'It is not _enough_! The Treaty is not enough!' He wails, forcefully fisting his hands in the collar of England's jacket. He looks truly miserable, weeping skull, tear tracks over parchment skin. 

In another life, Prussia might have felt remorse at the sight of his old friend like this; however, the War of Austrian Succession was almost two centuries ago and since then France had grown all the more arrogant and power-hungry, unwilling to grant the Germans as much as the life within their eyes. If France wanted be so vengeful, Prussia would happily mirror him; he remembered exactly what had been done to the Holy Roman Empire. 

_'How_ will he pay, pay for the countless lives he took?!' France chokes out in a voice strained to die by fury. 'My men will not come back, my crops- nothing will grow! He deserves to _rot_ , rot below the ground with all else he murdered!' 

Despair shudders over England's own face before he leans over the chair and clumsily cradles the others head against his chest, as one would do to an infant. 

He resembles much of a crushed insect, Prussia thinks scornfully, the way his limbs are bent all odd and awkward to get as close to France as possible. He wishes the shell-shock would come kick in now; send the bastard sprawling over France and onto the floor to knock out a few of those horrendously crooked teeth.

'They won't come _back_ , England!' France all but screams, fists helplessly clenching and unclenching against England's shoulders.

'I- I know, I know, I-.' England's voice shatters as he makes an odd sound in the back of his throat. His face contrasts beet red with the darkened gold of France's hair. He keeps one hand on the chair's backrest, the other at France's nape. Both balled tightly to keep from spasming. 

_'I know_. I'm sorry.' He shushes in a tender tone that Prussia's never heard him use before. 'I'm _so_ sorry, France.' 

France is getting more and more difficult to comprehend, spiteful sorrow stretching his words to a breaking point. 

_'Et_ _les docteurs,_ _ils-_ My foot-!' 

Prussia had noticed it as soon as he'd entered the Hall of Mirrors. No matter how many scented oils and perfumes idle Francis sprinkled onto his skin, nothing could completely mask the revolting smell of decaying flesh, of gangrene. It suited his rotten insides beautifully. 

'And then, then _you-'_ France's breath hitches achingly, and England jerks away from him like a startled deer. 'You say you will take care of me, but you can't even lift a fucking inkpot!' 

England stares mournfully at his trembling hands before his gaze freezes over and his mouth pulls back into that familiar sneer. 

'You're right. What bloody use am I? I can't do shit to make it better, apparently.' He says poisonously, tremble threading through his voice, shoulders slumping as he turns to the window. 

Prussia is mildly horrified that even he feels a tiny twang of sympathy for the man who'd once been his most reliable ally. He wonders what kind of fairytales England had been telling himself in the trenches, if he'd perhaps imagined that his little 'arrangement' with France would extend beyond the mud. In Prussia's experience, it never did. 

He'd tried teaching Ludwig; his only true ally was himself and lusting after others would only make him weak. Nations especially were selfish, unable to be satisfied even with all one had to offer; no matter what fools like Arthur liked to tell themselves at night. They would just _take_ , then leave for someone better. It would never be enough. He had never been enough. 

Much to Prussia's surprise, France gasps life into the dead silence that has crept into every corner of the room. 

_'Angleterre-_ England I- I'm _sorry_ , I didn't mean to-' Gilbert watches him plead to England's angrily hunched back, voice thickening with regret in a way he hadn't thought France capable of. 

'You _do_ make a difference, you know. A big one.'

England whirls back around, red around his eyes but his gaze hardened like glass as he straightens his back in determination, and for one moment Prussia thinks he's going to step forward and strike France across the face-

'Four years, France. Usually they pass by in the blink of an eye, but these _four_ hellish years- _God_. ' He begins instead, sinks one pinstripe knee onto the floor, takes hold of both France's hands. 

'And I spent them _all_ fighting, I did. Fighting alongside you and with you and _for_ you and I- Well I'm not going to stop now! We are going to sort this out. Together.'

France sits silently, parted lips, utterly transfixed. Their entwined hands shock and jerk violently in his lap, but he doesn't appear to notice. 

'Together.' He echoes faintly, and Gilbert longs to see the entirety of his face because whatever's on there makes Arthur's lips simper. 

What he can see, much to his regret, is the exact moment in which England makes his decision. It is practically written all over his face; glossy slits of eyes and an odd lopsided smile. Prussia watches England's eyes slide close, how his wiry legs strain as he reaches up to press a tender kiss to France's lips. Watches France welcome him with a lovely little sigh, betraying that they have done this thousands of times before. 

It makes sense, Prussia supposes. Somewhat. The line between love and hate runs frighteningly thin. He himself had experienced that first-hand with Erzsebet, Roderich and a whole other line of people who'd left him to wither in the dust. People he'd rather like to forget. 

Lusting after another nation makes one weak, was what he'd taught Ludwig. Loving another even more so. Yet, there's not a single doubt to put to the look on England's face as he pulls back. 

'We've been through so much together already, haven't we? We will figure it out, Francis. My beautiful, _beautiful_ France.' He says softly, eyes wide and gentle and darting over France's face as if he's never seen it before, and Prussia loathes the sight of him, as much as he loathes France's breathless whispers in return.

 _'Je t'aime, je t'aime, je t'aime.'_ The words are difficult to make out as they are uttered between two pairs of lips, but they do not fail to make Prussia's stomach churn over in jealousy. 

Fritz used to speak French to him too, once. 

He miserably watches France melt into England again, watches the man sigh and moan and greedily wind his fingers through the other's choppy hair, cut at a strange length to the scalp. A soldier's haircut. 

He'd been the one to shave Ludwig's head like that for the first time, Prussia realizes with an odd twist to his insides. Had his head bent over the sink, running the razor over his neck with ice cold water and quick, efficient strokes _._

* * *

_'You're cutting me, it hurts!'_

_Gilbert had only scoffed at his little brother, roughly dabbing a washcloth at the gash, tinging the water a light, fleshy pink. 'Don't be a child, it's healing already. You'll get much worse on the battlefield.'_

_'What if I die, Gilbert?' He'd quietly asked then, timid stare at the handfuls of blonde hair down the drain._

_'You get back up. And then you fight, and die again. And again. Until one day you don't and you've won.'_

_At his brother's horrified face he'd let out a snide laugh. 'There is no heaven for people like us, Deutschland. You have to make victory your solace, you won't be granted any more._ ' 

* * *

Except that there was no victory. Because England's hair had grown out as there would be no returns to the battlefield. Because the war was over. Because Ludwig had lost and would soon repent for it. 

His lungs suddenly feel all too small and shriveled for the air he's trying to suck in and he _can't_ stay here, can't watch France and England catch lips in heated breaths anymore. Can't watch as the wheelchair shrieks in agony beneath their shared weight and they don't even hear it, caught up in one another as they are because _how_ , how could it be that in this relentless world even these two undeserving monsters had found a way to love blindly, and were loved back in return? And how could it be that he had not, that he had his own brother out on the scaffold and no idea how to make it better? 

A pained noise escapes from his lips before he can smother it to die in the back of his throat and he flinches away from the door, presses his back flat against the wall as he clasps his hands over his mouth. 

'Did you hear that? You think someone's come to look for us?' He hears France ask dazedly. 

''They can go to _hell_ for all I care.' England says, adoration nearly dripping from the breathlessness of his voice. 'It doesn't matter. Not right now. Nothing else matters now.'

France laughs out loud then, all clear and genuine and _loving_ , and the very sound haunts Prussia's ears until he's darted across the floorboards and into another corridor, biting down hard on his fingers to stifle his angry cries. 

**Author's Note:**

> Is this work a trainwreck? Yes.
> 
> Will I still post it because it's the most loving I've ever written France and England and I don't want that to go to waste? Yes.


End file.
